This invention relates to apparatus for handling documents and more particularly to apparatus for receiving documents at a high rate of speed and stacking the documents on one edge thereof in a vertically disposed plane.
The use of various machines for automatically handling documents such as mailing envelopes at high speed finds increasingly widespread use in commercial and governmental institutions. Among such machines are those which are adapted to receive documents which are singly delivered thereto at a high velocity and to stack the documents on one edge thereof so that the documents are neatly arranged in a stack in a vertical plane. Prior art stacking devices are known.
Problems are often encountered in automatically stacking documents at high speeds. For example, if the documents in the stack are pressed together too tightly in forming the stack, damage to the documents can occur. For example, window type mailing envelopes often become torn adjacent the window which not only damages the envelope itself but may cause a jam in the stacking apparatus necessitating shut-down of the device. On the other hand, if the single documents are not held sufficiently tight in the stack, the documents may become skewed and through-put of the machine greatly reduced.
It is a principal object of this invention to provide improved apparatus for automatically stacking documents at high speed.
It is another object of the invention to provide apparatus for automatically stacking documents on one edge thereof in a vertical plane at high speed.
Another object of this invention is to provide document stacking apparatus which is self-adjusting in response to the pressure exerted on a stack of documents.
A further object of this invention is to provide document stacking apparatus which is adjustable to accommodate documents of varying size.